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As an example of how we adults ruin creativity, I have a screened porch where I display artwork paintings my grandgirls have done, in my home art studio. The youngest, was the most creative, until art in grade school put a stop to it. A neighbor stopped by, and not knowing a five year old had painted one, asked me where I got it, because she loved it so much. I said it was created by a former butterfly, who became a pupa (aka pupil, my definition for those who are taught, too young, the creative arts. I want them to try their wings without telling them how. Mother birds push their fledglings out of the nest. I've yet to know of one who didn't soar, not so with ours.)

There are not rules. There are schools of thought. There are conventions, expectations and forms. And there are opinions on what is good and what is bad, what is poetic and what is not. But there are no rules. It comes down to who you want to listen to, who you want to be influenced by - whether what someone says about “good” poetry makes sense to you. Poetry can be anything that involves creative use of language. The licence is potentially unlimited. But it doesn’t go very far in a vacuum. For poetry, or any art, to exit, there must be an artist, a venue (form), and an audience. Without an audience, how can the poetry be said to exist? So, yes, poetry can be anything involving language, but if you don’t manage to somehow reach an audience, then the words are irrelevant and you have only made an attempt at poetry. This is where convention and the opinions of other poets matter. Because it helps us find the place of relevance for poetry.

Language and thought evolve together. They are really two aspects of the same thing. They are the inward and outward expressions of intellect. One cannot develop without the other because thought cannot evolve in a vacuum. Intellect devolves in isolation.

Art is no different. Art drives change. It drives the evolution of consciousness. Art will always challenge the status-quo of conventional thought. This is why we get so excited about originality in art and about radical artists/poets who turn the art world on its ear. Poetry is in a constant state of evolution, as is everything else, but poetry and art show us the evolution as it is happening. They are immediate and apparent manifestations of conscious evolution. But to be a painter, one must first learn to paint. Throwing buckets of paint at a canvas is not art unless it’s done in a context that has evolved to recognize that process as part of a relevant movement. To write poetry, one must first learn to write. Random words on a page is not poetry, it’s gobble-di-gook. So even though poetic licence is potentially limitless, there are parameters only within which it can be relevant.

I just wanted to chime in a bit. Your entire statement is grand, it pretty much encompasses all, but, there is something to be said for gobbledygook, if that is your medium. What part of nonsense is sense, or lack of it. We can use negative spaces, if you would. Plenty of examples of art that are made of derivatives, nonsense, random parts put together in no order. It lets our brains find the order, to let our senses spin a bit. Art is found, not necessarily created, and done so by non-artists. We may have no interest in bad poetry here in this forum, only because we like to fool ourselves about how clever we really are. Words may only have an audience of one, and that is fine.

Cunningstuff, this is an old discussion so I had to back to the original question:

Poetic License: The freedom to depart from the facts of a matter or from the conventional rules of language when speaking or writing in order to create an effect:"he used a little poetic license to embroider a good tale"
Here's my question. Does this actually exist? If so are there circumstances when it's not allowed? What circumstances? If it does exist, what does it allow you to do and not allow you to do? Can I use "..." in a title? Can you deviate from the norms of a type of poetry?

I would say that poetry is built on poetic license. That's what makes it poetry instead of something else. Poetry, by definition, presses the boundaries of language. And to take up your comment:

"... there is something to be said for gobbledygook, if that is your medium. What part of nonsense is sense, or lack of it. We can use negative spaces, if you would. Plenty of examples of art that are made of derivatives, nonsense, random parts put together in no order. It lets our brains find the order, to let our senses spin a bit. Art is found, not necessarily created, and done so by non-artists..."

Gobbledygook is gobbledygook, not poetry. A horse walking around on a canvas with paint on it's feet is not a painting unless there is an artist behind the action that somehow connects that random act with some relevant context. Otherwise, it's just a horse making a mess. In the same way, the random fall of autumn leaves is not art unless a photographer takes a photo and places it inside some kind of form and context that creates a statement. That's what Marcel Duchamp did in 1916 when he hung a urinal on the wall in a gallery and called it art. He was making a statement about the nature of art. Take the classic example of "Jabberwocky" known as a gobbledygook poem, which is a genre. Jabberwocky is, however, anything but gobbledygook. It has made up words in it (which is an example of poetic license) but the context (grammar and syntax) around those words endow them with meaning, if not precise meaning, at least an expanded possibility of meanings. This would be similar to writing common words using the correct first and last letter and the correct number of syllables but filling the middle of the word with the wrong letters. By placing such a word in the context of an understandable sentence the reader can understand the word. Natural beauty or random beauty is not art. Only a sentient being can make art because it is a form of communication, however obscure it may be.

Now, poetic license allows us to push the boundaries of language and meaning within the context of poetry. However, without a recognizable context or an intelligent hand behind the words, there is no poetry. Found art only becomes art by manipulating or endowing that which is found into an artistic context - which is an intentional act.

My ability or lack there of, doesn’t make the words, scheme or structure I use a poem. At least I don’t think it does. It only becomes a poem when it finds meaning in the mind of a reader. I’ve used or at least have tried to use poetic license with good and very bad results.
My thanks to all for their comments and thoughts on this. You’re all wonderful, helpful, and dear to me.

"Illegitimi non carborundum " Vinegar' Joe Stilwell

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." Martin Luther King Jr.

What you learn in life is important, those you help learn, are more important.

"They can because they think they can." ​Virgil

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools will speak to say something." Plato
"The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible." ​ Mark Twain

"To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States." George W. Bush

I just wanted to chime in a bit. Your entire statement is grand, it pretty much encompasses all, but, there is something to be said for gobbledygook, if that is your medium. What part of nonsense is sense, or lack of it. We can use negative spaces, if you would. Plenty of examples of art that are made of derivatives, nonsense, random parts put together in no order. It lets our brains find the order, to let our senses spin a bit. Art is found, not necessarily created, and done so by non-artists. We may have no interest in bad poetry here in this forum, only because we like to fool ourselves about how clever we really are. Words may only have an audience of one, and that is fine.

Define bad poetry...within quantifiable parameters. e.g. Precisely and concisely delineate why poem X is bad and why poem K is art. Forum boards are the designated limits, so which poems are good and which poems are bad. Please show work and reasoning behind conclusions drawn.

All art has humble origins so flexibility in the abstract and adaptation to context and construct is requisite.

No interest in bad poetry...Talk about limiting one's horizons. Sure, maybe a poem is not great, but what can be learned from it? From a critique of the work? Form, thoughts about how a poem works, imagery that defies its current situation.

By taking apart the pieces that seems to have little to no value is when one can truly learn the most.

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